


Nothing Is as It Has Been

by storieswelove



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, also a lotta friendship tags in here I know, and a little bit of nostalgic/melancholy to round it out, basically just cousins being cousins, because what's a QT fic without getting a little bit emo?, but like fake ones with wooden swords, but there's a lot of friendship among the four of them!!, sword fights!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:09:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25871887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storieswelove/pseuds/storieswelove
Summary: “Spar with me.”Helen tilted her head to one side. Without breaking eye contact, she took a sip of her tea. The prevalence of sweet, brewed mint leaves were the one good thing to come out of the Mede empire.“I am Annux.”She blinked at him, then looked back down at her writing.*On a rare vacation with the other monarchs of the Little Peninsula, Eugenides learns that Eddis once let him win at sparring matches when they were children.
Relationships: Attolia | Irene & Eddis | Helen, Attolia | Irene & Sophos, Attolia | Irene/Eugenides, Eddis | Helen & Eugenides, Eddis | Helen/Sophos, Eugenides & Sophos
Comments: 28
Kudos: 56





	Nothing Is as It Has Been

**Author's Note:**

  * For [doublesloth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublesloth/gifts).



> Title from “Rivers and Roads” by The Head and the Heart 
> 
> This goes out to doublesloth, who has just as many cousin feelings as I do (and whose [Queen’s](https://thecrenellations.tumblr.com/post/621048038855737344/do-you-ever-get-the-feeling-lately-that-it-may-be) [Thief](https://thecrenellations.tumblr.com/post/621155230547116032/now-exit-i-as-the-sun-begins-to-rise-on-this) [art](https://thecrenellations.tumblr.com/post/184390009576/i-have-been-living-with-your-grief-and-your-rage) is second to _none_ ).  
> I tried as hard as I could to get them on the roof, but Helen wanted her feet planted firmly on the floor, and who among us could deny a queen? I promise to try to get them on a roof as soon as possible.  
> I hope you love it, and forgive me for the feels — it’s a rare day that I don’t take a fun plot and make it emo.

At the Eddisian hunting lodge on the coastal side of the pass, the air remained cool in the summer. Making the most of it, the kings and queens of the Little Peninsula took their breakfast outside each day during their short retreat. The stone terrace looked across the meadow, purple and yellow wildflowers in full bloom. On the meadow’s far side, the forest sloped up into the mountaintops beyond. 

One morning, the king of Sounis arrived late to breakfast, freshly bathed. He dropped onto the bench beside his wife with a grunt. Every inch of him radiated exhaustion. The summer break did not mean a break in training, even for the sovereigns.

“Are we _sure_ ,” he said. “Procivitus is not actually a fiend from Hell, sent here by the gods with the express intention of torturing me?” He cringed at his own words. Sophos tried not to accidentally question the gods these days. 

Attolis and Eddis laughed. 

“You may be right about the fiend part, but certainly we all suffer,” Eugenides said, shaking the left sleeve of his overcoat down to expose the deep purple bruise near his elbow. 

With a heavy sigh, Sounis added nuts to the bowl of oatmeal an attendant placed in front of him. Then he set the dish down, stared at the table, and considered laying his head down too. 

“Sometimes I think the nicest thing about living in Sounis is not having to train with him,” Eddis said, rolling up the sleeve of her husband’s tunic to check the bright red marks while he tucked into his oatmeal with the other arm. 

Attolia looked between the couple. “Do you train together when you are not in Eddis?” 

Sounis snorted. “Gods no. Helen won’t practice with me. It’s just as well — I’d be nursing bruises for weeks.” He paused for a moment to rub his hand gingerly down his side. “Not that I won’t be now.” 

“Oh, stop. You would be fine,” Eddis said. 

Sophos looked at his wife, amused. “Are you trying to make me feel better? Because I am not embarrassed. You are all terrifying.” It was no secret that the Eddisians, who trained with swords from a young age, were the fiercest soldiers on the Peninsula — and perhaps the Continent. Their monarchs were no exception. Eddis, as ruling queen, had continued her sword training beyond the age when most Eddisian women stopped. 

Eddis looked at him reproachfully, but he did not relent. “Helen, I’ve seen you train. It’s more intimidating than watching Aulus, and I’m still unsure whether he is entirely human either.” 

At that, Eddis rolled her eyes, but Eugenides laughed. 

“He is not wrong,” Gen said, leaning back in his chair, eyes closed. “There are few people she couldn't gut.” 

Helen looked at him out of the corner of her eye and smirked. “Including you,” she said lightly. 

Eugenides’s head snapped up. “Absolutely not.” 

“Perhaps not.” 

“There is no ‘perhaps.’ I can take you.” 

“I believe you, cousin.” She put up her hands in deference, but the effect was ruined by her chuckling.

“You’re placating me.” He crossed his arms irritably.

“Eugenides, I believe you.” 

He glared at her. “I’ve beat you before.” 

“When?” 

“We sparred, when we were children. You were much older than—“ 

“—I still am.” 

“You were much older,” he repeated, more firmly. “And I still won sometimes.” 

Eddis considered him for a moment. And then, in the practiced voice of someone coddling a younger relative, she said, “Eugenides, you were _ten_. Of course I let you beat me sometimes.” 

If Gen had been scandalized before, it was nothing compared to now. He looked at her in outrage. “You _what_?” 

“Surely you suspected?” 

“I did _not_. I can’t believe you—” But whatever Eugenides believed died in his throat as he sputtered, at a loss for words. Finally, he choked out, “And so you think you could still win? Just because you could beat me when I was small?” 

“Gen. I have _eleven_ years of training on you.”

It was true. 

Face dark with mistrust, Attolis turned away from Eddis. “We shall see about that,” he muttered under his breath, spearing a piece of apricot on his fork with excessive force.

Eddis rolled her eyes and sighed. 

*

“Was Gen actually angry?” Sophos asked his wife when they were safely out of earshot. It was at times difficult, separating Eugenides’s intentionally melodramatic temper tantrums from the real ones. 

“Oh, who knows. But if he is, I am sure he will get over it.” Her voice was gentle but firm, as though speaking it into the universe could make it so. 

_And perhaps it could_ , thought Sophos, not for the first time. The Eddisian cousins had an uncanny way of making the world bend to their will by the mere act of existing in it. 

*

“Helen, do you have plans for the morning?” Eugenides asked. 

The couples were gathered around the hearth. An evening storm had chased them inside after dinner. Conversation faded as they grew sleepier, lulled by the sounds of the crackling fire and rain pattering against the wooden lodge. Attolia hummed quietly in her chair, notes just clear enough to carry across the low rumble of the elements. Her husband, cross-legged on the floor, leaned back against her legs. She scratched his hair idly. 

Across the dark red shag rug, Helen was tucked into her own husband’s side, his arm tight across her shoulders. She eyed Eugenides suspiciously from her couch. “Why do you ask?” 

“Sophos and I were going to spar with our guards before breakfast. I thought you might like to join us.” Irene’s hand stilled in her husband’s hair. The sudden absence of music was louder than the humming had been. Helen felt Sophos’s shoulder tense behind her head. 

“No, thank you. I do not think it would be appropriate. They are not used to women sparring with them.” 

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ll make sure you aren't paired with any of the guard.” 

“No, I’d rather not. Thank you, Gen.” 

Bodies relaxed and humming resumed as Eugenides accepted defeat for the evening. 

*

The next day, Eugenides practiced with Procivitus on the far side of the courtyard, in full view of his family. 

“Is he trying to intimidate you?” Sounis asked Eddis when they had all finished eating. Attolis was still training. 

With a shrug, Eddis said, “Sometimes you just have to let him tire himself out.”

“It sounds like you’re talking about a small child,” Sounis said. 

Turning toward him in unison, the two queens raised three eyebrows at Sophos. 

He nodded. “I see your point.” 

*

“I could make you, you know.” 

“Hmmm?” Eddis looked up from the letter she was writing to find her cousin surveying her from across the table, chin in his hand. 

“Spar with me.” 

Helen tilted her head to one side. Without breaking eye contact, she took a sip of her tea. The prevalence of sweet, brewed mint leaves were the one good thing to come out of the Mede empire. 

“I am Annux.” 

She blinked at him, then looked back down at her writing. 

“This is,” he said, with a little more conviction. “An inter-state matter.” 

“While I am sure the petulant whims of Attolis still fall under the treaty, I hardly think the king of Attolia wants to admit to his court that he has never beat the neighboring queen in a sword fight.” Eddis never raised her eyes to look at him, pen still scratching away across the parchment. 

“Last I checked — and I did have final say — the treaty says nothing about conflicts being handled publicly. They would never find out — Not that you will beat me,” he added. 

Eyes still trained on her letter, Helen took another careful sip of her tea. The rounded tops of her cheeks gave away her smile. “Oh, they would find out,” she said sweetly. 

*

One evening, as Sounis read his book by the late summer sun, and the queens discussed a particularly sticky problem with one of Attolia’s courtiers, Eugenides slipped out of the house. He had a practice sword in his hand, with another tucked beneath his arm. 

“Helen!” he called sweetly. 

His cousin looked up at him. “Excuse me,” she said to Attolia, and stood to face Eugenides. She crossed her arms. She said nothing. 

Irene sighed. “His ability to wear someone down is astounding,” she said, so quietly that only Sounis could hear. 

“Oh, he will not. Not this time.” Sophos was confident. 

They sat and watched their spouses locked in a staring contest. Sure enough, it was Eugenides who broke, dropping the swords to the ground with a rattle and a petulant huff. 

Irene looked at Sophos. “How—?”

“You can almost always tell who will win,” Sounis said with a small smile. It was a rare moment he knew something Attolia didn’t. “The more reasonable Gen’s suggestion, the more likely my queen will win the standoff.” He glanced at Eugenides, who had splayed himself across the breakfast table, head hanging upside down as he stared across the meadow. “And the more outrageous the idea…well, my navy is still half the size it once was, and he is Attolis.” 

Beside him, Attolia regarded her husband. She nodded slowly. “Indeed.” 

*

The third morning Eugenides turned up to breakfast with practice swords, he said nothing. 

It was the dread of imminent irritation that finally made Eddis crack. She rubbed at her temples. “Eugenides, if I do this, will you leave me alone?” 

“Of course.” 

“Forever?” 

He smiled, victorious. “Anything for you, cousin.” His use of the familial term made it clear exactly what kind of fight it was to be. 

Head hung in resignation, Helen relented. “Fine,” she said, abandoning her half-finished breakfast. Grabbing a sword roughly from under his arm, she stalked across the terrace, looking every bit the soldier she had once worked hard to pretend she was not. Like a self-satisfied cat, Gen strode leisurely behind her. 

Irene turned toward Sophos in unspoken question. 

“I did say _almost_ always. I am not so sure of myself that I believe I can fathom Attolis’s every machination.” 

Irene snorted delicately. 

*

Eddis and Attolis readied themselves to spar. 

“Are you sure you want Sounis here? I would not want to embarrass you in front of him.” 

Eddis looked over at her husband and snorted loudly. “I think I will survive.” She pulled the wooden sword from under her arm by the edgeless blade, tossing it into the air in front of her to catch it by the hilt. 

“Ah, so you’ve already accepted defeat?” 

Eddis moved into starting position. “No, I am just not worried about losing.” She relaxed while she waited for him to pick up his own practice sword. “Nor am I worried about embarrassing you in front of Attolia. You manage that often enough on your own.” 

*

“She _is_ good,” Attolia said, sounding mildly surprised. The cousins had been sparring relentlessly for ten minutes. It was clear it was an even match, but Eddis moved with a practiced grace most lifelong soldiers did not possess. 

“There is a reason I will not practice with her,” Sounis mumbled under his breath. 

At that exact moment, the king of Attolia let out a loud swear as a wooden sword made contact with his ribcage. 

Eugenides was panting quietly. He grunted in disgust. “I think I’m losing my mountain lungs.”

Helen rolled her eyes at him. “Can I _please_ go back to my breakfast now?” 

He shook his head, curls already sticking to his scalp. “One more, Helen. You owe me.”

“ _Eugenides_.” She sounded, more than ever, like a woman exasperated with a very small, very difficult child. 

Helen glared. Gen smiled. 

Helen lifted her sword into position. 

*

Just a minute later, Attolis landed a blow on her shoulder. To everyone watching, it looked like a clear hit. But rather than celebrate, Eugenides was furious. 

“You let me win again!” 

“Gen,” Helen said weakly. 

“No. Too embarrassing. Go again.” 

Eddis was close to anger now, cheeks flushing. “ _Fine_.” 

*

“That was quite a show,” Sophos said quietly when Helen dropped down onto the bench beside him. Her face was red, and sweat-damp curls stuck to her forehead. Enraged, she had fought Gen into a corner, knocked the sword from his hand, and whacked him hard enough that everyone who saw was certain Attolis would be nursing a bruise for days. 

Leaning back with both of her elbows on the table, Helen turned toward her husband. His cheeks were red but his smile was sly. 

“Sophos,” she said, her voice tinged with amusement. “Surely not.” 

He shrugged, unabashed. She shook her head slowly. “You are very strange.” 

“Yes,” he nodded seriously, still speaking quietly. His voice was low and throaty. “And I would very much like to take my wife upstairs and—“ 

“Sophos!” Gen called from where he sat on a tabletop across the courtyard. Irene had gone to check on him after the last blow — it would not have been the first time Eugenides stubbornly ignored broken ribs. He struggled between not wanting to be seen licking his wounds, and basking in his wife’s concern. As always, Irene’s attention won out. She stood over him, rubbing a thumb across his check, satisfied that he was not badly injured while he yelled to Sounis. “Do you want a go? I could use the morale boost.” 

“No, thank you!” Sophos called in response. He turned back toward his wife expectantly. She bit back a grin. 

One hand on Sophos’s knee for support, Helen rose and headed toward the house. 

“Where are you going?” Eugenides asked. 

“I need a bath,” Helen said without turning back. 

“Sophos, where are you going?” he called back after Sounis now, who was trailing behind Eddis. “You didn’t spar.” 

Sophos paused and turned to look at Eugenides. He raised his eyebrows briefly. 

Gen recoiled. Beside Eugenides, Irene tried and failed to conceal her laughter. 

Waving a hand dismissively at his friend, Sophos turned back toward the house and followed his wife inside. 

*

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong now?” Helen asked, sitting down beside Eugenides. It was late in the evening. Eugenides sat at the edge of the paved courtyard, ankles resting against the grassy downslope into the meadow. It was the first chance she’d had to talk to him alone all day.

He turned to look at her. “What are you talking about?” 

“Gen,” she said gently. “The last time you were this hung up over something petty, you brought an entire farm to its knees.”

“It was not _petty_. Ornon deserved it. And look at him now. He makes a far better foreign ambassador than physical presence on the Peninsula. Without him, the Medes might already have attacked.” 

“Yes, Eugenides. As always, you were right.” 

He gave his cousin a rueful smile, then looked back out across the grass. He was silent for a long time.

“Do you miss it?” he asked. His eyes were now fixed on the forest in the distance. 

“Being pestered by you until I’m nearing the point of attempted regicide? No, I can’t say I do.”

Eugenides turned to look at her, one eyebrow raised. She smiled. 

“Yes,” she said truthfully. “Very badly.”

“Does Sophos know?”

“I think so. He asks, and — well, I don’t lie. Sounis is lovely. I like being near the sea. But it’s hard to deny, when we’re here...” She raised an arm and gestured at the mountains beyond the trees. 

It was her turn to look at him. He was staring into the distance again. 

“Irene knows?”

“Oh, yes. She’s caught me sulking. And she’s had my guard admit to catching me sulking.” He shook his head. “Did you know that even from the highest point of the palace in Attolia, you can’t see the mountains?” He paused for a moment. This trip ended his longest ever streak in the lowlands. “When I was young, and used to sneak off to Attolia, it felt like an adventure. If I could not see Eddis, then none of you could find me either. But now…” He scrubbed his face with his hand. “Gods know I would not trade my life for anything, but sometimes...sometimes I feel as trapped as Hespira beneath the mountain.” 

“Hespira wasn’t trapped,” Helen pointed out. “She chose to stay.”

They looked at each other yet again. Gen smiled softly. “So,” he agreed. 

Helen laid her head on his shoulder. He rested his head on hers. 

“Do you remember the last time we came here with everyone?” Gen asked. He had been nine-years-old, and Helen fourteen. It was a late fall hunting trip with all their parents and siblings. All three of her brothers had died a few months later, and her father not far behind the next year. She had been queen before the following fall. Eugenides’s mother had died the next winter. “You all went on some overnight hunt, but I refused to get on the pony, so my mother stayed behind. She took me up to the roof, and we spent the night dancing up there.” He lifted his head off hers and dipped it back to look at the tall, wooden lodge. The only people brave enough to square dance on the slanted roof were Thieves. 

“That was just a few years after you broke your arms falling off that horse in Kathodicia, wasn’t it?” Eugenides still hated riding, but those first few years after the accident had been particularly difficult. 

“Yes, but that wasn’t why I wouldn’t get on. Pylaster and Lias spent the week stuffing my boots with mud and sticks, and Janus hid snails in my oatmeal. The horse was just an excuse to get away from them.” 

Helen smiled fondly. “My brothers, always on a mission to upset someone.” 

“I got them back though. Did you know that if you rub coleus leaves on bedding for long enough, the next person to sleep on them will break out in a horrendous rash?” 

Helen pulled her head back slowly, shocked. “Gen — you didn’t.” She remembered vividly the three days after the hunt that her older brothers had been miserably itchy and cranky. It had not been a fun time for anyone on the trip. 

“That trip was just a few months after Irene was queen. I thought she was _very_ clever.” His smile was wicked. The news that fifteen-year-old Attolia had poisoned her bridegroom at her wedding dinner with powdered coleus root had spread through the Peninsula like wildfire. 

Helen shook her head in disbelief. It was rare that Eugenides could surprise her anymore. “We thought they had been foolish and touched a poisonous weed while we were out on the hunt. My father lectured them for _weeks_.” 

Gen was unapologetic. “They deserved it.” 

“Yes, I suppose they probably did.” Helen’s brothers, like so many of their cousins, had been notorious for picking on the younger boys. Usually, that had meant Eugenides. “You know, they made Sophos cry once, when he was very small.” 

Gen laughed. “It probably wasn’t that difficult. He is very kind and they were ruthless brats.” 

“Yes,” Helen agreed. “It runs in the family.” 

Gen nudged her in acknowledgement of the point scored. “I’m sorry I’ve been rotten company,” he said.

Helen snorted. “As have I. Did you truly believe I did not want to spar? When have I ever let a chance to beat you pass me by? I did not want our trip to dissolve into bickering. A lot of good it did us.” Helen left unspoken what they both knew — time together in Eddis was precious now.

They said nothing for a few minutes, watching the sky gradually change to orange. 

“I hate leaving,” Gen admitted, breaking the silence. 

They were due to part ways and return to the lowlands after breakfast the next morning. Neither knew the next time they might be back. 

“Have I ever told you about the temple I found when I was small?” she asked, changing the subject. 

“Temple?” 

Helen told him the story of the temple hidden in the narrow valley beyond the hunting preserves, and about Moira, Perihys and Eugenides — “She called him Gen, you know” — and about how she learned she would be Eddis — the last Eddis. Gen stayed quiet, listening. “I forgot, until the morning my father who was Eddis died. I woke up and found this on my table.” She slipped her hand from the pocket of her tunic and held up a piece of wax the size of a button. Gen eyed it warily. Eddis slipped it back into her tunic. 

“I remembered very little, even then. But the more I dream of the mountain, the more I remember of the temple. They fed me pigeon and told me I was a terrible shot.”

“You still are.”

She nudged him hard with her shoulder. “Perhaps. But I can still beat you in a spar.”

Gen laughed loudly, the sound echoing across the meadow before them. 

“You still have the dreams?” he asked.

“Less,” she said. “Less since Sophos came back from Hanaktos. Less since we were married. Less since I began to spend more time in Sounis.”

“How generous of them." 

She matched his earlier rueful smile. “Neither am I trapped below the mountain.” 

Heads piled on one another once again, they watched blues turn to pinks and purples as the sunset slowly painted itself across the sky. They neither spoke nor moved, each thinking their own remarkably similar thoughts. 

Footsteps rustling the grass behind them brought them from their trance. 

“Supper is ready,” Attolia said quietly from above. Eugenides looked up at her, a smile lighting up his face. First lifting himself up on his knees, he stood, and then offered Helen his hand. When she was up, Eugenides released her hand and took his wife’s, walking toward the table where the attendants had already laid out the food. 

Sophos, coming out of the house at that very moment, made his way toward her. Just the sight of him chased away some of the melancholy hanging over her. 

Sophos bent to kiss her cheek. “Is everything all right?” 

This, Eddis thought, made everything worth it, Sacred Mountain or not. 

Taking his hand, she nodded. “Yes, just very hungry. I worked up quite an appetite today.”

Sounis blushed. Arm in arm, they made their way to the table to join their friends.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! I'm on the hunt for prompts, as long as you don’t mind if it takes me a couple months to fill them! Come scream about QT with me on tumblr @ [storieswelove](storieswelove.tumblr.com)!
> 
> Cross posted on tumblr [here](https://storieswelove.tumblr.com/post/626302963624919040/nothing-is-as-it-has-been-the-queens-thief)!


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